Biden Issues Dire Warning on Transfer of Power After the Election

President Joe Biden isn’t convinced that there’ll be a fair and free election in November given Donald Trump’s recent rhetoric, and his violent political history.

Making his first appearance in the White House briefing room since he took office in 2021, Biden pointed to the Republican ticket’s avoidance of committing to a peaceful transfer of power as the reason for his concern.

“The things that Trump has said, and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election, were very dangerous,” Biden said, adding that JD Vance has made similar statements in recent days. “So I’m concerned about what they’re going to do.”

Earlier Friday, Vance refused to answer whether he agreed with Trump that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged.” The day before, he was caught by comedian Jason Selvig admitting that he believed Trump won that election. The caught-on-tape confession emerged days after the Ohio politico refused to answer a direct line of questioning from vice presidential debate moderators about whether he would challenge this year’s election results.

“Look, what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020, and my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues peacefully, in the public square, and that’s all I’ve said, and that’s all that Donald Trump has said,” Vance said, without making mention of any of the multiple instances in which Trump has publicly defended his supporters who ransacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

Later in the debate, Vance still refused to yield, even during a heated back and forth with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who noted that former Vice President Mike Pence’s decision to certify the election results was the reason why Vance was on the stage instead of the Indiana politician.

“Where is the firewall if he knows he can do anything, including taking an election, and his vice president’s not going to stand to it?” Walz asked on Tuesday. “That’s what we’re asking you, America. Will you stand up? Will you keep your oath of office, even if the president doesn’t?”

“So, America, I think you’ve got a really clear choice on this election of who is gonna honor that democracy and who is gonna honor Donald Trump,” Walz said.

In a leaked recording, Donald Trump joked about the death of a man at one of his rallies, during a dinner with donors in August.

The Guardian reports that Trump flew to Aspen on a jet once owned by Jeffrey Epstein (his usual jet had engine trouble) for the dinner on August 10, which guests had to donate between $25,000 and $500,000 per couple to attend. The publication obtained a 12-minute recording of Trump’s speech at the dinner. 

At one point, Trump spoke about surviving an assassination attempt at a Butler, Pennsylvania, rally in July, where a gunman killed firefighter Corey Comperatore and injured two other Trump supporters while trying to shoot the former president. He said that members of his Mar-a-Lago club sought to make a contribution to Comperatore’s widow. 

“I said absolutely, and they gave me a check for a million dollars. That’s a lot of money. Maybe even more impressively, we put out a GoFundMe, and we raised more than $6 million for the group that got hurt, which is essentially three people,” Trump said.

Then he described meeting Comperatore’s wife, Helen, and decided to make a joke about the whole thing.

“So they’re going to get millions of dollars, but the woman, the wife, this beautiful woman, I handed her the check—we handed her the check—and she said, ‘This is so nice, and I appreciate it, but I’d much rather have my husband.’ Now, I know some of the women in this room wouldn’t say the same,” Trump said.

The roomful of guests, who included casino owner Steve Wynn, businessman Thomas Peterffy, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Representative Byron Donalds, Representative Lauren Boebert, and former Senator Cory Gardner, broke out in laughter. Trump wasn’t done, though.

“I know at least four couples,” Trump said. “There are four couples, Governor [Abbott], that I know, and you’re not one of them. At least four couples here would have been thrilled, actually.”

It wasn’t the first time he had made that joke, as he had used it at least once before at an August 1 rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. But it definitely sounds more callous when one realizes that Comperatore was a working-class firefighter and Trump was joking at a private event full of wealthy donors and politicians. 

Trump also used disparaging and profane language to describe immigrants, at the dinner, even making up a false story about 22 people who supposedly were released from prison in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and came to the U.S.

“We said, ‘Where do you come from?’ They said, ‘Prison’. ‘What did you do?’ ‘None of your fucking business what we did.’ You know why? Because they’re murderers,” Trump said, adding, “I hate to use that foul language.”  

President Joe Biden gave a startling answer when confronted with concerns that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be trying to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

Earlier this week, Senator Chris Murphy said there was a possibility that Netanyahu would not be willing to sign a cease-fire deal before our presidential election, potentially to try to “influence” the results.

During a White House press briefing Friday, Biden was directly asked about those concerns.

“Do you agree, do you have any worries that Netanyahu may be trying to influence the election, and that is why he has not agreed to a diplomatic solution?” asked CBS’s senior White House correspondent Weija Jiang.

“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None, none, none. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden replied.

“And uh, whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know,” Biden said. “But I’m not counting on that.”

The vague nonanswer follows previous reporting that Biden is well aware of Netanyahu’s possible angle to help Trump.

Biden has reportedly told confidants that he believed that Netanyahu never wanted a cease-fire deal and was hoping to prolong Israel’s deadly military campaign in Gaza, not only to save his own political career but to give Trump a hand in November’s election.

Biden’s inability to secure a cease-fire between Israeli and Palestinian leaders has become a political liability for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, particularly in the battleground state of Michigan, which is home to the largest populations of Palestinian and Lebanese Americans in the country.

Despite concerns that the prolonged war could be giving Trump a boost, Biden and his administration have been unwilling to use any kind of leverage—including the billions of dollars in U.S. weapons sales or the billions in foreign aid—to compel Netanyahu to curtail Israel’s military actions in Gaza, which have killed more than 41,000 Palestinians. Israel has expanded its military actions to Lebanon, where it has killed hundreds of people in the last week alone.

Ohio Senator JD Vance skirted addressing Melania Trump’s startling abortion views on Friday. The Republican vice presidential nominee told a crowd in Lindale, Georgia, that he had no intentions of sparring with the former first lady over their staggeringly different perspective on the hot-button issue.

“I love Melania, I think she’s a great wife to the president, I think a great example of grace under an incredible amount of pressure, but Melania is entitled to her own views in the same way the people of Georgia are entitled to their own views,” Vance said. “And I don’t believe I have to attack or disagree or criticize anybody on this issue because our campaign is focused, again, on inflation, on securing the border, on making life more affordable, on bringing more jobs to the state of Georgia and the whole country.

“Look, I think she’s a smart person. I think she’s gonna express her views, and she’s entitled to do it. But it doesn’t change how I talk about this issue or how this campaign talks about the issue,” Vance added.

Ahead of the release of her upcoming memoir, Melania, the former first lady posted a video to her X account defending the “individual freedoms” of women to do what they wish with their bodies while championing abortion access. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Donald Trump confessed that he had encouraged her to “write what you believe” with regard to the new book.

The sudden, casual flip has left the rest of the conservative machine, including Vance, in a bind. Abortion has become a losing issue for Republicans nationwide. The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn abortion access proved disastrous for Republicans that November, resulting in major losses in districts where abortion was a key talking point. Postelection, at least some members of the conservative party had a stunning reversal, with GOP consultants referring to the turning tide on the issue as a “major wake-up call.”

But much of the Republican Party, especially the MAGA movement, has refused to give it up. Vance, for one, has previously likened abortion to murder and has supported efforts to strip abortion access away from women. In 2023, the Ohio politico called for a “minimum national standard” on abortion restrictions, and his run for U.S. Senate in 2022 included language on his website that described him as “100 percent pro-life.”

JD Vance couldn’t conjure a response Friday when asked about Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

Trump has long claimed that he “won” the 2020 presidential election, and that the process was “rigged,” making similar statements in nearly every campaign stop four years later.

Vance, who finally said Thursday that he too believes Trump won that election, was speaking in Lindale, Georgia, the next day, when he was asked to respond to the former president’s statements. 

“Senator, would you use that specific term, ‘rigged’?” asked one reporter. “You have said in the past you have concerns about election integrity … and going forward, and do you concur with the president that the 2020 election was rigged?”

Vance responded with his typical hostility.

“So, I’m from Ohio, I’m not from the South. But I think, I think in the South there is a phrase that really works: Bless your heart,” Vance replied.

“First of all, we’re focused on the future,” Vance said, skating past the question. “If you look at what President Trump says, what I say, we are focused on the future.”

In Vance’s nonanswer, how he intends to get to the future that he and Trump have planned is painfully clear: by once again undermining the results of the presidential election.

During Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, Vance gave a similarly “damning nonanswer” when asked whether he believed Trump had won in 2020, claiming that he was “focused on the future.”

“Look, what President Trump has said is that there were problems in 2020, and my own belief is that we should fight about those issues, debate those issues peacefully, in the public square, and that’s all I’ve said, and that’s all that Donald Trump has said,” said Vance. Two days later, he finally said loud and clear that he believes Trump won that election.

Earlier this week, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer brushed off concerns about the Republican reaction to the last election, claiming that only the liberal media was still focused on the election conspiracy. One of Trump’s top advisers, Corey Lewandowski, also flailed in response to the question of who won in 2020, claiming that Americans no longer “care” about that election. It seems not only that Trump still cares, but that he’s obsessed with 2020.

Trump’s comments about the 2020 election have taken on a new light this week, as the election approaches a month away. Earlier this week, an unsealed filing from special counsel Jack Smith alleged that Trump planned to declare victory no matter the results of the 2020 election and plotted to challenge the results, even when he was repeatedly told he had no evidence of any election fraud.